A new site allows anyone to set bounties on the death of any individual and anonymously pay a hit man who fulfills the contract with digital currency bitcoin. Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke and the prime minister of Finland are already on the hit list.

“Killing is in most cases wrong, yes. However, as this is an
inevitable direction in the technological evolution, I would
rather see it in the hands of me than somebody else. By providing
it cheaply and accurately I hope that more immoral alternatives
won't be profitable or trusted enough. This should primarily be a
tool for retribution,” says the text of the Assassination
Market, written by a man using the pseudonym Kuwabatake Sanjuro.

Users who log in have to simply place a name and a photograph,
and send at least 1 bitcoin (just over $700 at the time of
writing) through a trail-obscuring mechanism called a mixing
service, which tangles up different people’s payments in the
already nearly anonymous online currency.

The administrator then has to accept the candidate, before
posting his name on the front page.

“When someone uses the law against you and/or infringes upon
your negative rights to life, liberty, property, trade or the
pursuit of happiness, you may now, in a safe manner from the
comfort of your living room, lower their life-expectancy in
return… Politicians, bureaucrats, regulators and lobbyists are
accepted without question,” continues Sanjuro, named after
Akira Kurosawa’s stoic but deadly samurai character.

The would-be assassin then contacts the administrator - who
serves as an intermediary - and “predicts” the death of the
target on a particular date. If this date is correct, once the
target is dispatched, the administrator passes the money to the
hitman, without the two ever having discovered each other’s
identities, with Sanjuro keeping a commission of 1 percent.

The highest bounty is currently on the Chairman of the US Federal
Reserve, Ben Bernanke. 124 bitcoins translates to nearly $90,000.
Bounties can come entirely from one person or be crowdfunded.

No one on the list of six people has been assassinated so far.

The concept of an assassination market was predicted by
'cypherpunk' ideologist Timothy C. May in his Crypto Anarchist
Manifesto over two decades ago. This is not the first website to
attempt to offer the service, though the efficacy of others is
unknown.

It is, however, the first whose owner has so brazenly courted
attention; Sanjuro personally contacted Forbes magazine to talk
about his services. The self-proclaimed crypto-anarchist said
that his motivation for setting up the site four months ago was
as a backlash against government surveillance, as revealed by
Edward Snowden earlier this year.

“Being forced to alter my every happy memory during internet
activity, every intimate moment over the phone with my loved
ones, to also include some of the people I hate the most
listening in, analysing the conversation, was the inspiration I
needed to embark on this task,” Sanjuro recounted in his
online communication with the magazine.

Sanjuro went on to write that the website is set up in earnest,
but without the intention to make money.

When questioned about whether assassinating public figures on a
whim is fundamentally undemocratic, Sanjuro was defiant.

“Majority support does not make a leader legitimate any more
than it made slavery legitimate. With this market the great
equalising forces of capitalism have the opportunity to work in
politics too. One bitcoin paid is one vote closer to a veto of
whatever legislation you dislike.”

Forbes contacted security agencies, including the FBI, to ask if
any measures are being taken to close down the site, which is
currently easily found through Google, it received no comment.
But Snowden’s revelations have shown to that the National
Security Agency has dedicated considerable efforts to cracking
internet “anonymizers” such as Tor, and bitcoin transactions
themselves.

Sanjuro’s FAQ shows that he is aware of the imminent prospect of
arrest.

“All the money will be confiscated by the state, and I will
probably be killed or spend a considerable portion of my life in
jail. Provided the system is a success, of course. Which I am
hoping for.”